Last month The Cribs confirmed that Johnny Marr will be appearing on their fourth album. Now, it looks as though Marr could well be a more permanent fixture with the band.

Bassist Gary Jarman explains that The Smiths legend has contributed guitars to five or six songs on the record and he admits that it will be difficult to imagine performing these tracks without Marr at the helm.

He said: “(Johnny Marr) is gradually working his way into more and more songs, so he's doing about five or six with us now. He very much understands the band and everything he comes up with is really great stuff that we'd want on there anyway."

Looking towards the future, Gary continued to xfm: "We see this as something for the future that's gonna keep going. We're gonna do some recording together and then obviously those songs will only ever work as a fourpiece anyway.

“We're dead excited about it really and have high hopes for it so hopefully it will continue for a while.

"At first it was like we were gonna collaborate but now its at the point whereby if we make a record its just gonna be the next Cribs record anyway."

(by Scott Colothan)